Sunday, 29 April 2012

I am not the sort of Classicist who often goes on about
Latin roots or tags. I promise not to write many blogs consisting of
etymological lectures. But given the song-and-dance about IMPACT, which we in
British universities have been told is a main goal of academic research, I
thought it was worth recalling what this word actually means.

Our research is supposed to have an ‘impact’ on people, who
are defined either as other boffins or the general public, depending on which
bureaucrat you are talking to. In the next Research Excellence Framework
assessment, twenty per cent of the points given to each academic for her or his
research will be decided on the criterion of their ‘impact’.

Greek Professor impacts the public

The Latin word impactus
is the passive participle of the transitive verb impingo ‘I impinge something on something else’, and has a violent
resonance. If you were an ancient Roman, you used the term impactus to describe what happened to your fist if you smashed it
in someone’s face (Plautus Rudens 3.4.5),
to thick fetters when they were welded onto a slave’s limbs before he was sent
down the mines (Plautus Captivi 3.5.76),
to a stone which you hurled at someone you despised (Phaedrus 3.5.7) or to
soldiers forced by superior military force backwards onto earthworks (Tacitus
Hist. 2.41).

The term was also used metaphorically, but almost always
with a rather negative implication—you could have an impact on someone by
harassing them or laying an allegation against them. These are also the
implications of the term in English until very recently: so the Oxford English Dictionary in 1909 offers,
in the literal sense, ‘The striker's thumb…impinges the skull of his opponent’,
and in the metaphorical, the imputation of crime.

Roman Fist-Fighter

Don’t get me wrong. I
have argued since decades before research ‘impact’ was dreamed up that no academic
deserved a cushy lifestyle at the taxpayer’s expense if s/he was incapable of
explaining to that taxpayer why their research mattered. As a result of this
stance I even acquired a reputation amongst some refined classical scholars,
whose research was clearly far too elevated to be understood by mere lay
people, for having a ‘streak of vulgarity’. (This is an actual quotation from a
2011 anonymous AHRC peer review of the 'impact' section in a research proposal of mine; the review was not redacted
before being sent to me). I think anyone whose salary is paid by other citizens
should be accountable to them.

But the word ‘impact’ does not really get what I mean. I
would like the general public and other academics to understand what we do and why we think it benefits life on earth. But do we really want to impinge it on them? Actually, it doesn’t
matter if we don’t, since our research will be assessed on the impact criterion regardless.

UK Classicists Training for the REF

We clearly need to start smashing our monographs into people’s
faces and hurling transistor radios tuned to Melvyn Bragg’s BBC Radio 4 ‘In Our
Time’ at unsuspecting members of the public from our university library
windows. We need to go to war on other academic departments, dispensing bullets
made from squashed-up articles in History
Today and Nature from our automatic
rifles. Fortunately there is still time to organise this before the REF
submission deadline of November 29 2013.

Saturday, 21 April 2012

On Wednesday night I met one of Tony Blair’s chief speech-writers,
whose name is Phil Collins, over the microphones on Radio 3’s Nightwaves. He has written a useful book
on how to write speeches, with some nuggets from Aristotle and Cicero (which is
where I came in).

Collins is fun and very, very clever. He talked brilliantly about clarity and audiences. But when he addressed actual politics the charm
wore off. I suddenly saw an explanation
for the whole Blairite world-view when Collins claimed, in reference to the
oppression of black people, ‘It’s more
difficult now to write great speeches', since ’those issues, those stories aren’t really
there now’. I protested that, for example, the ownership of 90 per cent of wealth by
10 per cent of people might be regarded by some as an issue of
significance. But he insisted that ‘our
politics now...don’t contain many massive, grand issues,’ because ‘this is a nicer place than it was’.

Phil Collins

Collins was one of
the chief architects of the later period of New Labour ideology. He continued
to write speeches for Blair when Labour’s
back was up against the wall over Iraq after the revelations of detainee abuse
in Abu
Ghraib. But here he was saying, on national radio, that we live in a world
without social injustice or racism serious enough to warrant indignation (which he dismissed as ‘tub-thumping’).

The only conclusion to draw from this is that the rich and
the sophists on Planet Spin may not be cynical liars, as I had always thought,
but actually deluded. Perhaps they can’t see the world around
them accurately because they only travel between Hampstead, Westminster and the
BBC, and spend all their time with each other (Collins, although once from the
north, has himself worked as an investment manager and used to go out with Natalie
Imbruglia).

Perhaps this explains why the wealthy so beloved by Blair
are adept at tax avoidance: they don’t think that there ARE any problems, and so it’s okay to put money in offshore tax havens
like (e.g.) David Cameron’s father’s investment company. This fund explicitly reassured
its customers in 2006 that its affairs were ‘managed and conducted so that it
does not become resident in the United Kingdom for UK taxation purposes’. Places
like Panama proved amenable.

Curiously, the fund
from which Cameron’s fortune was consolidated was named BLAIRMORE Holdings Inc.
By 2006, this could have been interpreted as meaning that ‘you can siphon off MORE
under BLAIR’. For myself, not having any
spare cash to invest in Panama right now, I’ll have to stick to Tub-Thumping.

Saturday, 14 April 2012

The UK government proposes a law allowing police
and security services to monitor all our communications by email
and social media. This is an outrageous development in a country that claims to
be a democracy, which means that the people (demos) have the sovereign power (kratos). The government, police and security apparatchiks are supposed
to work for us, not against us. The legislation we
actually need is a review of the twenty-three exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. These include Parliamentary
Privilege, the Queen’s right to non-disclosure, and, extraordinarily,
information which, if disclosed, ‘would, or would be likely
to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person.'

Having said that, one of my top ten Rules for Survival is never to say
anything to anybody about a third person that I wouldn’t be prepared to say to
their face. Theresa May, Home Secretary, is more than
welcome to read my emails. On the
rare occasions when, because of too much wine, I have accidentally copied in people to emails in which I criticise
them, I never in the end regret it. I always
subconsciously wanted to let them know anyway (as in ‘x was a pusillanimous
pillock at that meeting yesterday’). In Vino Veritas.

Truth as a way of life (coincidentally the motto of the California State
University, Vox Veritas Vita) is for me a pragmatic
rather than a principled stance. I took the decision about thirty years ago
when I tried to have two boyfriends at once. I not only kept calling Paul ‘Alan’
and vice versa, but nearly had a
nervous breakdown trying to keep track of my falsehoods.

Hans von Aachen, Justice and Truth

I have since realised how liberating the no-secret-bitching strategy can be. Amateur snoopers like to elicit ‘secret’
opinions from people in order to accumulate power. I have often been able to
call such a meddler’s bluff when they discover that what they think was a confidential
opinion of mine (e.g. ‘x is a total prick’) was already common knowledge to the
third party because I had said ‘you are a total prick’ to them the day before.

In
terms of a little-known pair of cartoon detectives I used to love, I am a
Blabber not a Snooper. Truth has no metaphysical mystique for me. It doesn’t
set you free. It isn't a naked woman who can persuade Justice and her lion to protect her when she's assailed by Fraud and Force. But it sure as hell makes
life easier.

So the government proposes a law allowing police
and security services to monitor all our communications by email
and social media. This is an outrageous development in a country that claims to
be a democracy, which means that the people (demos) have the sovereign power (kratos). The government, police and security services are supposed
to work for us, not against us. We, not government apparatchiks, are the state. The legislation we
actually need is a review of the twenty-three exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act 2000. These include Parliamentary
Privilege, the Queen’s right to non-disclosure, and, extraordinarily,
information which, if disclosed, ‘would, or would be likely
to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public
authority holding it).’

Having said that, one of my top ten Rules for Survival is never to say
anything to anybody about a third person that I wouldn’t be prepared to say to
their face. Theresa May, Home Secretary, is
welcome to read my emails. I do not think there are any which I would mind
being made public property. This includes references I write for people. On the
rare occasions when I have accidentally copied in people to emails in which I criticise
them, always because I have had too much wine, I never in the event regret it. I always
subconsciously wanted to let them know anyway (as in ‘x was a pusillanimous
pillock at that meeting yesterday’). IN VINO VERITAS.

Truth as a way of life (coincidentally the motto of the California State
University, Vox Veritas Vita) is for me a pragmatic
rather than a principled stance. I took the decision about thirty years ago
when I tried to have two boyfriends at once. I not only kept calling Paul ‘Alan’
and vice versa, but nearly had a
nervous breakdown trying to keep track of my falsehoods.

I have since realised how liberating the no-secret-bitching strategy can be
in daily life. There are a lot of amateur snoopers around who like to elicit ‘secret’
opinions from people in order to accumulate power. I have often been able to
call such a meddler’s bluff when they discover that what they think was a confidential
opinion of mine (e.g. ‘x is a total prick’) was already common knowledge to the
third party because I had said ‘you are a total prick’ to them the day before. In
terms of a little-known pair of cartoon detectives I used to love, I am a
Blabber not a Snooper. Truth has no metaphysical mystique for me. It doesn’t
set you free. It certainly doesn’t make you beautiful. But it sure as hell makes
life easier.

Saturday, 7 April 2012

I do not have a big appetite. I eat little relative to
everyone I know except for some Bollinger-and-fag-addicted anorexics. But when my
family sprang a Mother’s Surprise and booked a table at the ‘AA Highly
Commended Inn’ The Feathered Nest in
Nether Westcote on the Oxfordshire/Gloucestershire border, I was left utterly ravenous.

The serving staff, who looked like agency models, were hurt when
we rejected the wine list in favour of 2 cokes and 2 pints of bitter. The ravishing
waiter gazed at the ceiling in horrified disdain when child 2 asked if they
served scampi and chips. I ordered cod. To
be precise, ‘Cod with roasted cauliflower, bacon, caper and raisin purée’
at the price of £18.50 (that is, more than three times the current minimum wage
for over-21s, which is £6.08 an hour).

An hour later, 2 cubic inches of rubbery white fish arrived,
along with one very small floret of cauliflower, split in half (see photo with
Lego minifigure to supply scale), and no perceptible sauce. Absolutely no
bacon, rasins, bread, potatoes or other vegetables either. I know the price of cash-and-carry commodities,
and the plateful (which is a euphemism) cost the restaurant approximately 20
pence.

There were somenoisy
people in green wellies at the next table raving about the champagne list. I
accept that we were simply tacky wannabes and out of our consumer league. But
even tacky wannabes are not completely gullible. Since when did this kind of mark-up become acceptable business practice?

I did complain, and a manicured
midlife moustachioed male with an oiled coiffure (centre in this picture, holding the cup) reluctantly
appeared. He scrutinised me as though I weighed in at 30 stone and smelt of
bovine excrement. He asked disparagingly what Madam Might Feel Was an Adequate
Portion of Cauliflower. I suggested 7 small or 4 large florets. He sneered as
if I had vomited on his William Morris-themed carpet.

We went home and ate sandwiches. But the incident
has worried me. Just how many people pay enormous amounts of money for nearly
empty plates of food, in a modern revision of Hans Christian Anderson’s tale of
the weavers and the Emperor’s New Clothes?

The father of my children suggested the title of this blog. Apparently
the term COD in relation to supply of commodities means CASH ON DELIVERY, but
without comeback for the purchaser. This is insulting to the cod or Gadus
morhua, a dignified species
resident in the North Atlantic, of which the females can lay an astonishing five
million eggs at a time. But it is, surely, appropriate to the experience of the
hungry female of the species Homo sapiens who imagines she can eat a
decent dinner in a Cotswold pub once it has developed megalomaniac delusions.
The phrase ‘to feather one’s own nest’ is glossed in the OED as ‘to avail oneself of opportunities for laying
up wealth, to enrich oneself ’ at another’s expense. This should have been
warning enough.